i have never found myself in poetry,but i think i may have found myself in your armsas we sit in your kitchen, waiting for the kettle;your soft eyes and parted lips, sculpted by aphroditeas you silently boil the water.

you have careful fingers as you pour the hot waterinto two red, chipped mugs. i remember thegentle pressure of those fingers twisted in my hair.

curled green leaves lay with small jasmine flowers,pearlescent petals floating delicate in the mug. how sweet this vanilla air is, and for a vivid moment,you have the effervescent beauty of a thunderoussplinter of forked lightning.

i sip carefully, hoping not to burn my lips,as tentative as the manner in which i reachfor your hand in the dark. my mouth burnswith the taste of green tea and sugar.(but i wish it was burning with the taste of your lips)

i like milk and sugar in my tea, but you don't.you like a spoonful of honey, golden and warmspilling over the sides of the cup;sticky and sweet. (i find myself completely andutterly in love with you, my dear.)

can you read my future in the unfurled petalsthat hide forgotten and bitter at the bottom of my cup?(i want to know if you're in it)-- i'm terrified of not knowing, but i hide that truth behind our many cups of tea.

and my favorite thing in the worldis bringing you a mug of tea early in the morningwhen you're still foggy with sleep, the finalityof your dreams creeping up slowly-- butfor at least a moment, a faint memory remains.

there's a worried crack in my upper lip, split between my front teethand you tell me that it's nothing a cup of tea can't fix,and then i realize this may be the most i have ever thought about tea.

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BlueTurtle

Oct 07, 2018

Wow I love this piece! The imagery is so beautiful. At first I thought the poem was just about a couple making tea and as I continued to read I realized that is was much more than that. The last sentence really reinforced that idea and I thought it was very interesting and cool. Well done!

écrivain

Oct 08, 2018

thank you! i'm glad you enjoyed it :))

"still, like air, i'll rise."

aesythe

Oct 08, 2018

How beautiful. It was a wise choice to choose a secondary topic (tea and tea-making) as a vehicle with which to talk about love - it adds a fresh layer to an old topic that makes your narrator's feelings easily understood without the mush. So quickly a love poem can turn into a sappy cliche, but that is not the case - you've avoided that entirely. There's a distinct level of thoughtfulness I see in the structure of this piece... your vague, sideways approach to love feels clever and intentional.

Sidenote - I also really like nod to divination here, and it well illustrates your narrator's worries about the future of their relationship.